And so we cannot be astonished to find the three lads sitting together, in solemn conclave, on a bright summer's forenoon, far away on a green brae that overlooked Glenvoie.
Indeed, they had come here seriously to discuss their future.
Viking was lying close to Duncan with his great loving lump of a head on the boy's lap.
"You see," Duncan was saying, "it is precious hard for lads like us, who haven't any money to get a kind of a start in the world. If we could only get a beginning, I feel certain we should need no more. But our father is poor, Frank!"
"Heigho!" sighed Frank, "and so, alas! is mine."
"I know," continued Duncan, "that he would scrape the needful together somehow if we asked him. He could not sell any portion of the estate, because it is entailed, but I know that father would try hard to raise enough money to send Conal and me to sea as apprentices."
"And you really think you'll go to sea?" said Frank.
"As certain as sunrise, Frank. Mind I don't expect to find things quite so rosy as books paint them, but to sea I go for all that, and so will Conal."
"And so will I," cried Frank determinedly. "For my father is poorer far than yours. But I won't go before the mast, as I think you mean to."
"No?"